What is tea?

The word 'tea' refers to a drink made from steeping camellia sinensis leaves in water - all tea comes from this plant. The differences between tea types are down to how that leaf is processed before it ends up in your cup. There are 6 main types of tea - white, yellow, green, oolong, black (or red) and puer. These are each quite broad categories, and there are overlaps between each. 

True tea is made of loose, whole leaves. Tea bags are a recent feature of our fast-paced, convenience-focused world, and they're usually filled with substandard tea broken down and blended to achieve a consistent flavour profile. But broken, small leaves release more bitterness than whole leaves, meaning these blends don't showcase the true variety and nuances that camellia sinensis has to offer.

True tea is rarely flavoured. While there are some traditional flavoured or blended teas in Eastern tea traditions, like jasmine-scented green tea or osmanthus oolong, true tea features the skill of the tea processor and the characteristics of the terrain where the plant grows in its flavour, rather than relying on artificial flavourings. 

Tea is about mindfulness and community. Most British tea drinkers are familiar with the latter - we immediately put on the kettle when guests arrive. But we rarely take the time to be fully present with our tea, in the way that Chinese gongfu cha or a Japanese matcha ceremony invites us to be.